“THEY say it’s your birthday … we’re gonna have a good time” says iconic Beatle Paul McCartney.
Okay but don’t tell that New Orleans Pelican Anthony Marshon Davis, who hardly celebrated his 25th birthday last March 11 following his team’s 116-99 home loss to the fast-rising Utah Jazz in a National Basketball Association game.
In that game at the Smoothie King Center (formerly known as the New Orleans Arena), the 6-foot-10 All-Star forward registered the first-ever triple-double performance of his six-year NBA tenure with 25 points, 11 rebounds and a career-best 10 blocked shots along with three assists and three steals.
The University of Kentucky alum is the first NBA player to post a T-D with blocks on a birthday since blocks (and steals) became an official statistic starting the 1973-74 campaign.
Davis’ 10 blocks is an all-time single-game franchise record and six swats in one half equaled his own franchise mark.
Davis, who became the Pelicans’ all-time leading scorer and rebounder last January-February (surpassing David West – now in his second season with the reigning titlist Golden State Warriors – in both categories) – was disappointed with his shooting, though, having gone just 9-of-22 from the field.
“We lost, so I don’t really care about no career high or anything like that,” said Davis, New Orleans’ highest-salaried player at $23.8 million and owner of season averages of 28.0 points, 11.1 rebounds, 2.4 blocks, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals a game.
The Pelicans recently put together a 10-game winning streak (February 10-March 7) and are in the thick of the fight for one of the eight playoff berths from the ultra-competitive Western Conference, ranking fifth at 39-28 but only one game ahead of co-eight-placers Utah (39-30) and San Antonio (39-30) and 2.5 games in front of 10th-ranked Denver (37-31).
Davis chalked up 40 or more points on five occasions during the 10-game win skein, including a mind-boggling 53-point, 18-rebound, 5-block effort in New Orleans’ 125-116 home success against the Phoenix Suns last February 26.
Davis’ career high in scoring is 59 points – a franchise record (eclipsing Jamal Mashburn’s 50 in 2003) that he set on February 21, 2016 in a road victory over the Detroit Pistons.
Meanwhile, the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook racked up his league-leading 21st triple-double on March 13 (US time) with 32 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds in the Thunder’s 119-107 win over the Hawks in Atlanta for the 100th T-D of his 10-year NBA career.
The 6-foot-3 hard-driving playmaker turned in the trick in his 736th appearance. Only Oscar Robertson (277 games) and Earvin (Magic) Johnson (656) reached 100 T-Ds faster.
Westbrook is the fourth player in NBA history to produce 100 T-Ds in a career after Robertson (all-time best 181 games), Johnson (138) and Jason Kidd (107).
In 2016-17, Westbrook registered an NBA single-season record of 42 triple-doubles – one more than Robertson’s old mark of 41 that he set with the Cincinnati Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) in 1961-62 and five more than he had in his first eight seasons combined. Aside from winning his second NBA scoring crown, the UCLA product also became the first player to average a triple-double in a season since Robertson in 1962.
The Thunder are 16-5 when Westbrook records a T-D this season and 82-18 in his career. Westbrook is the only player ever to have netted a triple-double against each of the other 29 NBA franchises. Kidd and Cleveland’s LeBron James are second and third, respectively, with 28 and 27.
Talk of NBA birthdays, only two players in league annals have ever scored 50 points or more on their birthdays: Shaquille O’Neal and Dominique Wilkins.
Shaquille O’Neal knocked in a career-high 61 points on March 6, 2000 (his 28th birthday) in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 123-101 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at the Staples Center. Describing the performance as his favorite as a Laker, “The birthday game was a special game. A lot of people don’t know – that game, Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) was on the bench (as a Clippers assistant coach). So when I was coming down, he wouldn’t look at me. So I put in my head, ‘Okay, Kareem is not respecting men.’ So I just turned it up a whole other notch.”
Wilkins, dubbed as “The Human Highlight Film” for his high-flying acrobatic slam dunks, collected 53 points for the Atlanta Hawks on January 12, 1987 in his 27th birthday.
LeBron James, in his first tour of duty at Cleveland, racked up 48 points during the Cavaliers’ home win over the Atlanta Hawks on December 30, 2009 on his 25th birthday. Michael Jordan notched 46 points for the Chicago Bulls on February 17, 1992 in his 29th birthday.